


Thirdly, for the Memories

by StarsInMyDamnEyes



Series: Witcher!Jaskier Oneshots [4]
Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, BAMF Jaskier | Dandelion, Competent Jaskier | Dandelion, Gen, I’m back on my bullshit, Jaskier with a Sword, Nilfgaardians Die Here, No Post-Mountain Geralt Vilification, Non-Human Jaskier | Dandelion, Overuse of Italics as per usual, Platonic Relationships, Post-Episode: S01E06 Rare Species, The title makes no sense but it does meet my standards of sounding pretentious as fuck so it stays, Witcher Jaskier | Dandelion, disappointingly short fight scenes, jaskier’s actual competence as a witcher, no beta we die like stregobor fucking should have, this is just an excuse for jaskier to be a bamf really, uhhh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-31
Updated: 2020-05-31
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:35:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24475105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StarsInMyDamnEyes/pseuds/StarsInMyDamnEyes
Summary: He did not, of course, give his name as Jaskier - if anyone connected him-as-a-witcher to him-as-a-bard, he doubted anything good would come from it - and he’d debated taking a new alias entirely, before deciding that Julian was a perfectly adequate name that he wouldn’t have to train himself to answer to. He might as well get some use out of it too - he hadn’t gone by it properly since he was sixteen, which was rather a waste of a name, if he did say so himself.So, Julian the maybe-perhaps-a-witcher had settled into a comfortable routine on the path - kill monsters, get paid, test the limits of a witcher’s ability to tolerate drink, and abjectly refuse to buy a horse on the grounds that he would rather not be responsible for a four-legged suicide machine.He really should have expected life or Destiny or whatever to throw him a curveball after that, because nothing could ever be fuckingsimplefor him.
Relationships: Cirilla Fiona Elen Riannon & Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Cirilla Fiona Elen Riannon & Jaskier | Dandelion, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia & Jaskier | Dandelion
Series: Witcher!Jaskier Oneshots [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1735543
Comments: 59
Kudos: 580





	Thirdly, for the Memories

**Author's Note:**

> I swear to fucking god I’m still doing the prompts I’m just really slow hfjksdhgfkjdhjk
> 
> This one was based off this gem an anon left in my ask box: _Oh god the sudden urge for 'jaskier being turned into a witcher by freak experiment post dragon-hunt ..... and hes frighteningly good at it cause while he CHOSE to be a bard he did undergo fierce phyiscal training as the viscounts son - hes simply out of practise. And idk he saves geralts live before yelling at him for being a rude prick' cause thats the shit i like apparently_
> 
> This cured my depression and watered my crops hjfgkdsfjhgkfjdh thank you anon on tumblr

Jaskier knew damn well what people thought of him. He was acutely aware, thank you very much, that most people saw him as a flighty, whimsical soul, all talk and no action, waxing poetic about absolutely everything and as shallow as they came.

It was probably that, as well as his passing, twenty-year acquaintanceship with the White Wolf of Rivia - who, in reality, was about as much from Rivia as Jaskier was from Nilfgaard, and Jaskier was still trying to puzzle out why the man had intentionally taken the Rivian _accent_ \- that had convinced... Had convinced whoever the fuck the brain-rot ridden experimenters who’d kidnapped him were, and he did not for one second believe that they were _Temerian monks_ , of all things, that he’d be a perfect little test subject.

Knowledgeable enough that they wouldn’t have to explain everything from the ground up, docile and pliable enough that he’d be easy to manage. They’d assumed he’d be easy.

They’d assumed, and that had been their mistake, hadn’t it? Jaskier had no qualms about keeping his heritage secret - he tossed the name _Julian Alfred Pankratz_ around rather liberally for someone who claimed to have cut all ties with his past, in all honesty, not that any of his oh-so-generous companions had noticed or cared enough to comment - but then again, that didn’t exactly reveal much beyond his origins.

Say they’d known. Say that the so-called monks had been aware that their pansy-arse bard had been a pansy-arse noble all along, what would that change? The nobility were not known for their propensity for physical competence, and the heir to the Viscount de Lettenhove - likely the Viscount himself, now, honestly, he’d have to check - would be no different.

Lettenhove was an unimportant settlement in the middle of nowhere. Jaskier doubted that anyone would suspect that the Viscount would have insisted on the kind of training that Jaskier had gotten for his heir - and even if it had crossed their minds, meeting the bard would have disabused anyone of the notion immediately. Jaskier did so love playing the hapless companion to greater men.

The monks had thought him an incompetent through-and-through, it seemed, and had started none-too-gently drilling him through basic forms with a longsword the moment Jaskier had stopped choking on his own blood and bile - give or take a few weeks or so during which he had to relearn how to use, how to tolerate his own fucking body, and really, Jaskier was utterly pissed that he’d been gotten drugged and caught in the first place, because this was utter shit - and Jaskier had played along, for a while, giving the bastards a right fucking show, wielding the longsword like a rapier because he knew it was certain to piss them off.

Then, he’d decided that actually, when the monks said _jump_... Well, _how high_ was far more dissatisfying an answer than _get fucked_ , and so he’d taken his rudimentary knowledge of Signs and very much _advanced_ knowledge of swordsmanship to put an end to this ridiculous experiment.

Really, if they wanted to bring back the witchers so wholeheartedly, they should have expected one of the righteous bastards to take moral issue with it... Even if the righteous bastard who did, in fact end up doing so, was still rather more of a forty-year-old bard in a shitty situation than a witcher. Too, his quarrel with the wankers was more along the lines of the whole kidnapping and experimenting on him, causing him a lot of pain, keeping him captive and effectively ruining his life thing, rather than the moralising Geralt was so prone to.

The end result was the same, though. He’d taken the swords he’d been so generously offered by his robed captors and used it to put an end to the whole fucking farce once he was confident he knew enough about witcher-ing to at least not get immediately killed.

Jaskier had no idea how they didn’t see this coming. Raising abandoned kids as witchers was one thing entirely, kidnapping independent adults and forcibly mutating them and torturing them was another entirely.

Or was he supposed to take the moral high ground, there? Not fucking likely. If the douchebags were cruel enough to pull this whole scheme off, and dumb enough to let him loose with a sword, then by Jaskier’s reckoning, they had it coming.

Either way, he’d set off on his way having suffered barely a scratch.

Jaskier knew damn well what people thought of him, what the monks had taken him for, and he was proud to say that they had gotten it entirely wrong. He’d never thought he’d ever be grateful for his father’s gruelling training - or rather, the training at his father’s behest, the man himself had nary a day of exercise to his name to boast of - but, between a childhood filled with aching muscles and sleeping on his stomach each night so that the wounds on his back, testaments to poor performance, wouldn’t pain him, and remaining at the mercy of the monks...

He knew which he’d choose. At least his father’s motives had been clear.

The former bard allowed himself a little reprieve to mourn his former life, because he was under no illusion that he’d be able to perform with the slit-pupilled yellow eyes of a witcher that everyone always seemed to notice - possibly because they reflected the light - they’d have him thrown out on his arse for darkening the door of any establishment with a lute in hand.

His wallowing, however, had been interrupted when he decided to take a contract, lacking coin and requiring supplies, namely proper food, as he was, and realised... He was actually not too bad at this whole witcher thing.

Jaskier had - and he would brag about this to anyone who had ever asked and some of those who didn’t - the most fantastic memory, able to recall the most seemingly unimportant information with terrifying accuracy. It was how he’d graduated with honours at Oxenfurt having spent his entire time there either drunk off his balls or hungover enough that a pack of ghouls could have invaded the room and he still wouldn’t have picked up on it over the pounding of his head, and it had served him well over the years.

It was coming in extremely handy now, especially given Geralt’s propensity for giving short, abrupt corrections regarding most every creature Jaskier had immortalised his fights with in song - that was to say, most of them - as well as all the fights Jaskier had borne witness to over the years. He had a fair bit of knowledge amassed, and it turned out that he was, insofar as a paltry half-a-witcher could be assessed, rather good at putting it into practice.

Oh, sure, he wouldn’t dare drink any witcher potion he replicated, and he’d bungled a contract or two... Or twenty, thanks to unseen variables he’d never quite managed to pick up on, or facts he’d mixed up - and really, how was he supposed to remember the intricate differences between a noonwraith and a nightwraith? - but on the whole, he was, dare he say it, quite good as a witcher.

He managed to kill whatever monster was plaguing whatever village more often than not, and Jaskier had amassed far fewer scars than he thought he would. The two deep gashed, claw marks, running from the left side of his chin, cutting across his lips and ending a finger-breadth above them, were the worst he’d gotten, and they were hardly anything of note.

Either way, his travels took him from Temeria to Mahakam to Aedirn then Temeria again and then Kaedwen, and he found that walking around witcher-ing was, for the most part, rather enjoyable, too. Sure, he missed his lute and music like he’d miss a limb, and the cutting retorts and snide looks he got just for daring to exist hurt just a little bit more than he cared to admit even to himself, but he couldn’t deny that hunting down a monster and fighting it provided him with the action and distraction he’d come to crave, the always-on-the-move lifestyle suited to his wanderlust.

He shouldn’t have been surprised, really - this kind of thing was why he’d begun to follow Geralt in the first place - but he _was_ , Jaskier was downright disbelieving that he’d ended up with a net fucking _positive_ here. He’d never even imagined that he’d one day hold a sword and _enjoy_ it.

He did not, of course, give his name as Jaskier - if anyone connected him-as-a-witcher to him-as-a-bard, he doubted anything good would come from it - and he’d debated taking a new alias entirely, before deciding that Julian was a perfectly adequate name that he wouldn’t have to train himself to answer to. He might as well get some use out of it too - he hadn’t gone by it properly since he was sixteen, which was rather a waste of a name, if he did say so himself.

So, Julian the maybe-perhaps-a-witcher had settled into a comfortable routine on the path - kill monsters, get paid, test the limits of a witcher’s ability to tolerate drink, and abjectly refuse to buy a horse on the grounds that he would rather not be responsible for a four-legged suicide machine.

He really should have expected life or Destiny or whatever to throw him a curveball after that, because nothing could ever be fucking _simple_ for him.

Jaskier hadn’t expected this at all.

He was in Kaedwen, and he’d just completed a contract for a sodding kikimora, and set off with an amount of coin that was, surprisingly, almost the amount that he’d been promised, when he heard it.

The sounds of battle, raging, and a very, very familiar voice shouting, yelling at someone to _run_.

He stood, for a minute, trying to assess the situation. Geralt was fighting, steel on steel, and from the foreign shouts, Jaskier could surmise that he was fighting Nilfgaardians, at least seven of them, possibly - probably - more.

And then Cirilla of Cintra burst forth from the bushes, barrelling straight into him.

Jaskier reacted immediately, catching the girl in his arms and spinning round, taking a step and turning so that her momentum didn’t knock the both of them over, before placing her down on the ground.

It did not take very long for her to lash out and punch him, a blow which he sidestepped easily.

“Hey! Hey, whoa, I’m not going to hurt you!”

Cirilla regarded him, as he put his hands up, meeting her gaze.

“You’re a witcher,” she said, voice shaky. “Please, I need your help. There’s another witcher, in the clearing, he-”

“I know, I can hear him,” Jaskier interrupted, not wanting to waste time. “Nilfgaard, correct? You should hide, I’ll help him.”

Relief was evident in Cirilla’s posture, in how her shoulders sagged, and Jaskier deposited his meagre pack in her arms as he raced off towards Geralt.

There had been, he saw, a total of twelve Nilfgaardians, of which Geralt had dispatched five - six, Jaskier amended, as the steel swords sliced through the neck of yet another black-clad figure - and the witcher was bleeding. He was keeping his opponents at bay with his sword, moving it in wide, swinging arcs. It was an excellent tactic, but it severely limited his ability to focus damage, and anyone could see that the battle was wearing on him. He was forced to remain on the defensive, scanning desperately for an opening - he was _losing_.

That wouldn’t do at all.

Jaskier would have preferred a short sword or two for this, but he was woefully under-armed - he hadn’t managed to accrue enough coin to purchase weaponry besides the customary steel and silver longswords he knew were the best for fighting bulky monsters twice his size - but this was hardly the time to lament such a thing. Jaskier could be dangerous when armed with a rag and a pincushion, for fuck’s sake - a longsword was more than fine.

Drawing his steel blade, Jaskier leapt into the fray.

Focused on Geralt as the Nilfgaardians were, it was all too easy to catch the first two unawares - a sword through the back of the neck felled one man, and he twisted and beheaded a second with the first corpse still handing from his blade, only wrenched off and freed by the impact of the second body slamming into it.

Four to go - that was much more manageable.

Jaskier heard Geralt roar in pain - a Nilfgaardian had gotten him straight through the shoulder.

He leapt at the man, and the Nilfgaardian’s arm was separated from his body before he could pull his sword out, and his brain matter separated from his head before he could register it. He should, Jaskier thought wryly, as the top half of his skull fell to the floor some way away from the rest of his corpse, have worn a helmet.

There were only three left.

Jaskier struck vertically downwards at the closest man, who raised his sword to parry, providing Jaskier with the opening he needed to quickly alter his movement and duck under his guard, sliding his sword under the man’s ugly black chest-plate and skewering him, abandoning his own sword in the corpse and taking the Nilfgaardian’s with his free hand easily.

He adjusted to the weight of the weapon easily, and slammed the damn thing up through the chin of one of the two remaining men - this one _had_ been wearing a helmet, and that helmet was wrenched off his head as the tip of Jaskier’s blade burst through his skull.

Blood splattered him as he pulled the sword from the corpse, cleaving the unfortunate soldier’s face almost perfectly cleanly in two.

This was so much like all those training sessions in his youth, when his father would sic however many of his soldiers he could spare on Jaskier just to watch him fight them off.

It was all so much easier when he could actually kill his targets. It was all but over before it had really even begun.

The remaining Nilfgaardian, Jaskier did not attack immediately.

“Drop your sword, and stick your hands up in the air for me, my good fellow.”

Without a moment’s hesitation the Nilfgaardian did.

“I’d love to have a nice long chat with you, I really would, but as you can see, my friend is-” and fuck, Geralt was bloody _unconscious_ , evidently Jaskier had underestimated the damage he’d taken- “in quite a bad shape, as you can see, so I’ll be quick about this. Answer my questions, and you should know that I’ll be able to tell when you’re lying.”

Jaskier was bluffing a bit, there - the witcher method of picking out lies was really rather unreliable, given that an increased heartbeat was really a sign of nervousness rather than lying, and other such pitfalls, and this man’s palpable terror rendered it all but useless anyways - but the tried-and-true Jaskier method of reading people, whilst also rather unreliable, was-

Oh. Wait.

Jaskier’s hands formed a now-familiar sign - one of the few things he could actually than those monks for - and directed it towards the soldier.

Axii.

“Why are you here? Who sent you?”

“I do not know! I was just following orders! We were told to kill the witcher and capture the Lion Cub of Cintra!”

Fantastic. He hadn’t managed to nab the leader.

“Whose orders?”

“I‘ve no idea! The captain only told us what we needed to do, I didn’t ask questions!”

“Why does Nilfgaard want Cirilla?”

“I don’t know!”

“Is there a bounty out for them, or is it just a military matter?”

“I do not know, but i assume yes! She is important to Nilfgaard, so probably we were not the only ones sent after her!”

“Thank you for your time,” Jaskier said, and, as the sign dissipated, he swung his sword at the soldier and took his head off.

Stopping only to free his own blade from the corpse he’d left it in and sheath it, he rushed over to Geralt.

The man was quite clearly unconscious, and, as Jaskier examined him, dragging him into a seated position, he could quite clearly see why - his back was bleeding so profusely from three massive gashes that it was likely the blood loss that had gotten to him.

He dragged Geralt over to a fallen log and laid him over it to examine him more thoroughly, exposing his back but giving his shoulder enough clearance that the sword stuck through it would not be disturbed - the last thing Jaskier needed was to cause more bleeding - and got to work.

The gashes were deep, but the had not carved into bone or organs, which Jaskier was thankful for - the blood loss and the split skin seemed to be the only issues. He would need to disinfect those and stitch them up.

His pack was with Cirilla, and Geralt’s with Roach, who, thankfully, had ventured back towards Geralt when the sounds of battle had ceased.

The packs were organised much the same way as they always were, despite the odd change of positions or additional contents that were no doubt for Cirilla’s benefit, and Jaskier found the medical supplied soon enough.

Geralt didn’t have any Swallow - foolish, but then again, perhaps he’d simply run out, prior injuries would explain why he’d gotten so injured in this fight with the Nilfgaardians - but he did have Kiss, which was perhaps even better an option now. Administering it to an unconscious Geralt without having the man choke on it would prove to be quite a task, but one that Jaskier had completed before.

Given that the concoction would staunch the bleeding, Jaskier hastily removed the sword from Geralt’s shoulder before administering the Kiss potion.

Brilliant. Now to disinfect the wounds.

Geralt had been lying on his back in the dirt, and the cuts would need to be washed first and foremost.

They’d need to get more water, soon. Geralt had lost a lot of blood, he needed to drink, and Jaskier was about to co-opt his water-skin’s contents to wash his wounds free of dirt, and - was that a fucking _leaf_?

He made quick work of cleaning the dirt and grime from Geralt’s wound, trying not to rush but aware that he would have to go find Cirilla as soon as possible, and disinfected them with alcohol for good measure - Jaskier would hopefully not have to replace that for him given that he was using it for Geralt’s benefit - using up most of Geralt’s supply to ensure that the split skin was clean. Once he was satisfied that the gashes weren’t going to immediately get infected the moment his back was turned, he went to find Cirilla.

The girl was well-hidden, in a hollow tree-trunk bathed in shadow, hidden and quiet enough that Jaskier could only find her by scent, and he made his presence known before approaching - partially to avoid scaring the girl, and partially to avoid having an eye gouged out by a child.

“Hey, kid? The soldiers are dead but I need to tend to- to your friend’s wounds, so I’ll need you to come back quickly so that I can stitch him up.”

Cirilla climbed out of the tree, his pack in hand, and began to make her way back to Geralt without waiting for Jaskier.

“I should warn you, there are quite a few corpses about, and please don’t touch Geralt because I really don’t have enough supplies to clean his wounds a second time!” Jaskier called, running after her.

She came to a dead halt by the clearing, and Jaskier shot her a reassuring look.

“Here, bring my pack over to where Geralt is, then I can stitch his wounds.”

Cirilla nodded, trembling only slightly, eyes fixed on Geralt.

“He’s going to be okay, but he’s lost a lot of blood and he needs stitches.”

“Okay,” Cirilla whispered. “Will you- Will you stay with us? Just until he’s...”

Jaskier nodded. “Of course.”

It was quick work, stitching Geralt up - the witcher had never inquired as to where Jaskier had gotten so good at tending to wounds, but his father had been adamant that he stitch his own wounds as a child, citing the excuse that he couldn’t jolly well go limping off after a healer in the middle of the wilds. At the time, Jaskier would have paid dearly to have him explain what fucking wilds he could possibly get lost in, given that he wasn’t even permitted to leave the manor grounds.

He’d found out, years later, that the Viscount de Lettenhove had intended for him to rise through the ranks in the Redanian army. The man would likely have had a conniption if he’d been able to see where Jaskier was now.

It was a beautiful thought.

Cirilla watched his suture the stitches with anxious eyes, following the needle as Jaskier threaded it swiftly and expertly through Geralt’s skin.

“You’re really good at that.”

Jaskier beamed. “Thank you! You’re very nice, you know.”

Cirilla’s lips twitched upwards. Jaskier counted that as a win.

He finished stitching his once-best friend up with great efficiency, and went and pulled one of Geralt’s spare shirts from his pack and manhandling it onto the unconscious witcher. It wouldn’t do to have him dirty his wounds again. Packing everything away, too, was a cinch, and soon enough they were ready to leave.

“Well,” Jaskier said. “As much as I love the sight of rotting Nilfgaardian corpses, we should probably get out of here lest they send anyone to check in on these charming fellows. Can you ride a horse?”

The girl nodded, and Jaskier grinned. “Fantastic! You take Roach, then, and I’ll carry your witcher.”

Instantly, Cirilla became guarded. “How do you know Roach’s name?”

Oh, shit.

“It’s... I know Geralt. Knew him. Travelled with him a while. I know Geralt, I know Roach, and I know you’re Cirilla of Cintra, his Child Surprise.”

Cirilla glared at him. “Why didn’t you say so?”

“Honestly? I didn’t want you to know. It would be a bit awkward for me, if you asked him.”

“Why?”

“We parted on... less than pleasant terms. And then a whole shitshow of things happened that I’d rather he not find out about.”

“What’s your name, then?”

“Julian.”

Jaskier hoisted his pack over his sword-bearing shoulder and Geralt over the other. The man was a surprising weight, for his size. He was built strongly, with defined musculature, giving the impression of someone who weighed a not-insignificant amount.

He did not weigh as much as he looked like he weighed.

He weighed at least three times that.

“Geralt never mentioned a Julian.”

Cirilla hosted herself into Roach’s saddle easily enough - from the looks of it, she usually rode whilst Geralt walked.

“I never told him I was a Julian.”

“Why?”

“Because he knew me as someone else. Like I said, a lot of things have happened since we parted.”

“Like what?”

“Forgive me, Princess, but I’d rather not talk about it.”

“Why?”

Jaskier’s mouth curved into a smile. “Bad memories, mostly. With a slight dash of awkwardness. How about we talk about something else? Something happy.” They set off through the forest, avoiding the main roads, Jaskier carrying Geralt’s unconscious form and Cirilla atop Roach. “Do you want to talk about something or should I?”

Considering this for a moment, Cirilla eventually replied. “You say something.”

“Right, then. How about I tell you about a contract I took in Temeria? One of my firsts. There were villagers, and they asked me to break a curse on a manor nearby. Now, I’m no mage, but I said I’d have a go, so I went to take a look at the manor, and when I got there, I found the house empty save for a little girl, about six or seven summers. Given that I’d been told the place was cursed, I was mistrustful of her, to say the least. She asked my why I was there.”

Jaskier paused, apparently for a tad too long, because Cirilla spoke up. “What did you do then?”

“I said I was there to break the curse, and she asked what curse, and I explained it to her, how the townsfolk had said that lord had disappeared from the manor a few months ago and since then, the their said children had been going up to the manor and not coming back. She giggled, told me I was being dumb, that there wasn’t a curse, and I should go back to the town and tell them that. And I don’t know about you, but that sounded very curse-y to me.”

“So what did you do?”

“I left the manor, circled round the back, and snuck right back in again.”

Cirilla giggled.

“So this time, I stuck to the shadows, decided to scout out the place without being seen. I had no idea how to break the curse, mind you, so I was still just trying to gather information, and then I heard a scream, a child’s scream, and so I ran in that direction, and I found some _fucking_ human traffickers in the basement, they’d killed the lord, his family, and all the servants and men he had who didn’t join them, and there they had the little girl from earlier, trying to tie her up, and she was screaming, asking why they were hurting her when they promised she’d get treats, rewards if she was a good girl and she _was_ \- and then the men noticed that I’d just burst through the doorway, silver sword swinging.

“And they froze, because of course they did, but wiping their fucking grins off of their faces wasn’t even the best part, because one of them _recognised_ me, we’d known each other at-” _Oxenfurt_ “-a place I’d stayed a while in my youth, and he just kind of said _it’s not what it looks like_ , as if I’d caught him sneaking my vodka instead of running a human trafficking ring.”

Jaskier paused. “Actually, it was probably only funny if you were there for it.”

Ciri snorted. “Yeah.”

“But picture this, you shared a room with a man for a few months in your youth, a man you thought to be very unassuming and amiable, who helped you cheat on the History exam you were taking in exchange for the low, low price of a fine bottle of Chardonnay priced the same as a good race-horse - and then, a quarter of a century later, you’re running a perfectly horrid yet profitable human trafficking business, and this man bursts in with a silver sword and the eyes of a witcher, and you just go _it’s not what it looks like_ , completely failing to register anything beyond _oh hey it’s Julian, he has a sword pointed at you_ , and then-

“Well, then he died. And I took the girl and the other children I found back to her parents.”

“Did you kill them? The traffickers?” Cirilla asked, green eyes wide.

Jaskier considered. “You could say that, I suppose, but would sound so cliché if I said yes, dearest Cirilla, so let’s just say that they all took turns running into my sword, how about that?”

She snorted.

Geralt stirred on Jaskier’s back, groaning, and twitching.

“I think that’s our cue to stop walking and take a break, Cirilla.”

“Okay. And it’s... It’s Ciri.”

“Alright, Ciri.”

Jaskier made his way into a clearing, setting Geralt down, propped up by a particularly sturdy tree, as Ciri dismounted Roach and followed him.

Freeing his water-skin from his pack, Jaskier opened it and handed it to Geralt, who was evidently still orienting himself.

“It’s water. Drink it.”

“Jaskier?”

The bard pressed his lips together. “Drink the water.”

“You smell... Different.”

“I probably do, Geralt, but that’s so far beside the point at hand that it’s practically in Kovir. Now drink the damn water, you idiot witcher, you’ve lost a lot of blood and you need it.”

Thankfully, Geralt did, and that was the end of the conversation, Jaskier beckoned Ciri over.

“We’ll rest here until Geralt finds it in himself to either ride or walk, and then we’ll move. Is that alright with you?”

Ciri nodded. “Is Geralt okay?”

“Ask Geralt.”

Ciri looked over to the White Wolf, who had emptied Jaskier’s water-skin in record time.

“Are you okay?”

“Yes,” he said, his voice gruff and throaty despite the water he’d just downed. “What happened?”

“The Nilfgaardians were in the clearing... You fought them, you told me to run, and I bumped into Julian. I didn’t know who he was, but I could see he was a witcher, so I asked him to help us and he did, he killed the Nilfgaardians and stitched your wounds, and then we left so they don’t catch us if they send people after them.”

Geralt’s head was, apparently, clearing far too rapidly for Jaskier’s liking. “Julian?”

Ciri nodded. “Yeah, Julian, but you know him as something else.”

“He’s a witcher... What School?”

“Huh?”

“What’s on his medallion?”

Ciri’s brow wrinkled. “I don’t know. I didn’t see it.”

“Where did he go?”

“He’s standing behind you. I think he’s trying to escape your notice.”

Geralt twisted around and fixed his eyes on Jaskier. “Julian, huh?”

“In my defence,” Jaskier said hesitantly, shifting slightly. “You never asked.”

“That your real name?”

“Yeah, Julian Alfred Pankratz.”

“Long name.”

“I was born into the nobility. Son of the Viscount de Lettenhove.”

“Been a witcher long?” The sarcasm in Geralt’s tone was palpable, and Jaskier bristled.

“No, actually.”

“What, all of this a recent development, then?”

“Believe it or not, it is, you utter pillock.”

“Right, because you can train up a proper witcher in a month.”

Jaskier grinned. “I wasn’t trained as a witcher. My father had this whole plan, for me to join the Redanian army and rise through the ranks, bringing honour to the Lettenhove name. He nearly threw a fit when I went off to Oxenfurt, let me tell you.”

“Then how-”

“Ah, you’re still as impatient as ever, I see,” Jaskier said, aware that Ciri was watching them with a sharp focus. “ _This_ whole thing all came about when some hubris-ridden bastards decided that I’d be the perfect test subject for their whole bring-back-the-witchers experiment. I’ve no doubt they’d have taken it a lot further if they hadn’t been fool enough to give the man they’d just tortured some nice, shiny swords and free run of the fucking place.”

Immediately, Geralt’s face fell, in a display of raw _emotion_ that Jaskier had never thought he’d ever see from the witcher.

“Fuck, _Jaskier_.”

“If it’s any consolation, they will most certainly not be repeating their mistakes on account of- oh, hello. What are you doing? Are you hugging me? You are most certainly hugging me. Huh. Don’t be too vigorous about it, you’ll tear your stitches- You are a very, very aggressive hugger, you know that?”

Ciri, then, decided it would be the perfect time to tiptoe over to them and join the bone-crushing hug that Geralt was holding Jaskier in.

They seemed to stay like that for an age, before Geralt let them go.

“Are you... Alright?”

“Just dandy. I mean it, Geralt. I do miss my bardic career like hell, but I’m doing fine - and that’s Jaskier-fine, which includes a high standard of mental wellbeing, and not Geralt-fine, where the bar is so low that apparently your intestines seeing the light of day figures _above_ it.”

“Hmm.”

Ciri chose this moment to interrupt. “You’re Jaskier? The bard?”

Jaskier nodded.

“That’s how you knew who we were! Geralt mentioned you a few times.”

“He spoke?” Jaskier gasped, feigning shock, and Ciri giggled.

“Shut up, bard,” Geralt grumbled, but the fond undertone Jaskier had become so used to listening for had grown into something more overt.

Huh.

“We should get going,” Jaskier said at last. “Wouldn’t do for Nilfgaard to catch up with us so soon after my heroic rescue of you.”

“We’re going to Kaer Morhen.”

Jaskier paused, pack slung haphazardly over his shoulder, turning his attention from Ciri mounting Roach to Geralt.

“Your witchery hideaway?”

“For Ciri.”

“I suppose that makes sense. Nilfgaard won’t be able to lay a finger on her, there.”

“You should come with us. Talk to Vesemir, maybe he can help you. Spar with us, too, see how your sword skills measure up against a witcher’s.”

“Poorly, I should imagine,” Jaskier grinned wickedly. “I’m but a squishy human bard who’s never held a sword in his life.”

He got Geralt’s elbow in his ribs for that one, and he ruined the effect of his indignant squawk a little with his laugh.

“Are you coming, or should we wait for Nilfgaard to catch us?” Ciri called, indignation in her voice as she looked down on them from atop Roach.

Jaskier grinned. “Give us a few years, and we’ll get going. We have to adjust our pace for Geralt, see - he takes everything almost ridiculously slowly, it takes him years to get anything done.”

The princess stuck her tongue out at him.

**Author's Note:**

> I’m @stars-in-my-damn-eyes on tumblr if you wanna leave witcher-y things in my ask box :)
> 
> *stares at lark’s requiem!Jaskier* see this is how it could have gone for you if i were nice
> 
> I need to update that fic hgjkdfhkjghfjkd
> 
> Please leave a comment, i crave external validation like a depressed rat in a cage craves cocaine


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